Some comments on Dr Howard Tucker longevity tips

From his Voice, Dr Howard Tucker’s voice is spent. Who could could be a “bouncing baby boy” at over 100 years after he has buried his wife, two children and 4000 patients? Who could be choleric till 102 years?

When I hear of anyone over 100, I long for the longevity secrets. Some women over 90 ate no foods before mid day. They drank water. Even the first meal was corn porridge or “pap”, which does not burden digestion much. It is true that the yoruba “pap” recipe from which the fiber has been removed may cause diabetes when eaten for several years. Nevertheless, there have been persons in my extended family who did not develop diabetes on it, while some did. I guess what paved the way to diabetes is the way food is eaten. Were the vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, co-factors and phenolic compounds for example, in the diet? I am a whole grains person. I got the idea from a world teacher. A world teacher is not the one who teaches about events on planet earth. The earth is not the world, but like a grain of sand in it. So, my corn pap powder is made from white corn, red corn, yellow corn and millet, picked, washed and oven roasted before they are milled to powder. I eat it with about Five raw leaves which may include pawpaw, chanca piedra, bitter leaf, Basil (efinrin), shiny bush (yoruba, ren ren) and nettle. Sometimes, I add cocoa, spirulina, wheat grass or Amalaki (Amla) powder, or parboiled tomato for lycopene for the prostate gland, Avocado if it is in season for Potassium for the heart, peanuts and crayfish for plant and animal protein. Thanks to Mrs Folake Sanusi (08080807719), who, from Osogbo, mills these grains for me quarterly. What began for her as a hobby has grown into a vocation!

I wish to comment on about five other depositions of Dr Howard Tucker, space permitting. One is pepper’s role in the diet for healthy blood circulation. On empty stomach this morning, 14 February 2026, I chewed seven alligator peppers on a handful of peanuts to swallow some of my blood circulation food supplements which included Jobelyn. One hour after, I drank a glassful of fresh Aloe vera gel juice. The Jobelyn is antioxidant, anti inflammatory, sugar burning, energizing, immune building and blood enriching. The Aloe vera drink is no less a health blessing. Europeans do not eat pepper as we do in Yoruba land. They have just appreciated cayenne.

Blood circulation or stagnation, to which Dr Tucker made copious references, is about motion or movement which is an adamantine compulsive order in Creation. Everything must move on or stagnate and deteriorate. That is why the blood is circulating, water is circulating through evaporation and rainfall, the air and the clouds move like the waves at sea. When we go to bed, lying on the left side and wake up on the right side, we obey the law of motion as our lungs also do.

When I was 11 and lived with my uncle at N4/464 (Apata Aiyeraiye building) in oke Aremo, Adeoyo, Ibadan, the residence and the neighbours purchased their beef from a butcher who advertised his presence with a sonorous song… Emi ni (oni) Imoran, Imoranmi laarin okunrin ati obirin. Emi ti ko je ata, emi yepere”… (“I am the advisor. My advice is for men and women. The heart which does not eat pepper is a flimsy heart.”) He taught the importance of dietary pepper.

Mrs Elizabeth Kafaru taught us about peppers and Nigerian circulatory herbs in her column in THE GUARDIAN newspaper and, later, in her book…Help from nature’s workshop, a title I was privileged to give a collection of her articles in book form as the newspaper’s Editor. Cayenne, (Sombo, yoruba) appeared to be lead pepper for this purpose. With it, her Elikaf Clinic helped persons with stroke, blood clots, high and low blood pressure, among other health conditions. European cayenne powder makers concentrate theirs more than ours. In one of our worst harmattan seasons, one capsule of their cayenne gave me 1000 units of heat for days. A spoonful of ours in the soup hardly impacts the tongue.

Finally, I wish to address The Law of Motion and return to TheWorld Teacher. He taught that this Law brought the cosmos into being and maintains it. The pressure in the creative command, Let there be light, impacted pressure on the previously inert environment, and pressure leads to movement and movement to heat. Heat is important in everything which exists and lives because heat enables unions, and unions perfection. Do oxygen and hydrogen not need heat to form water? Everything must be mobile or perish…Observe the planets, the Sun and the Stars etc. The blood must circulate within us, the heart must beat and the lungs, the bowels and the urinary bladder must move. On earth, we are a trilogy of spirit, soul and body. The spirit powers the Soul and the Soul, the body. Thus, persons in spiritual (not religious please) activity are healthier in soul and body than persons in whom the spirit is walled in or inactive. Among human populations, it is evident that thinking people who rely on the brain and the intellect, first instrument of the brain, are less inventive and productive than those who are intuitive, that is rely more on the spirit through intuitive perceptions, the conscience and the inner voice. Even among persons who rely on their brains and the intellect to the exclusion of the spirit and intuitive perceptions, aging is most rapid and health equally deteriorative in the years after retirement from work especially. Cognitive and affective skills begin to fail. So do the organs. It is suggested, therefore, that retirees find something to do which engages their mind and body in obedience to the law of motion if they do not wish to fall ill and then die soon, as Dr Howard Tucker warns. I learned this in my twenties from The world teacher. As I write, it is well past 4 a.m. I will listen to news on radio till 8 a.m. I sleep till about 11a.m and rise for breakfast which I have been promised will include chicken heads for omega-3 for my brain. From the worldteacher, I learned that only the frontal brain, the cerebrum, the thinking brain, needs rest and, perhaps sleep, not the back brain, the cerebellum, which, working with the spirit, co-ordinates all involuntary activities such as the heart beats and the movement of the lungs.

For persons who sit for too long, I suggest ankle exercises. They may move their ankles as far forward and backward as they can for as many counts as they can, as tailors do on the feet- driven sewing machine. This movement activates the calve muscles behind the lower legs which are called… the second heart. Their movements promotes blood circulation. I do it several times a day when I sit, or when I rise from bed in the morning, my legs thrown upright 90 degrees and my fingers trying to touch my toes.

Persons who do not sleep well and deep at night may have over excited central nervous system (CNS). They may bathe with Sagbadewe soap well lathered on their bodies before bed. I may send a literature on this natural soap on whatsapp request to 08116759749 and 08034004247. Other sleep helps are unsweetened cocoa powder as tea or added to supper and banana eaten with raw lettuce before bed, for their Tryptophan which converts to melatonin, the sleep – inducing neuro transmitter.

Loneliness is a serious condition. One woman once tricked her husband to drive her to my house in respect of her health. Before me, she turned the heat on him, saying he hardly talked to her at home and accused him of other misdeeds which made her lonely. When she said his mouth was smelly because he hardly opened it, the man spoke defensively. He said she always turned upside down any word he uttered to fashion a “civil war” at home which was making him, too, lonely and heading for depression. Apparently, as matters eventually evolved, their diet was deficient in mood balancing phytochemicals.

The chronic worrier is most likely to be a person who is attached to earthly matters and is likely to become earth-bound after earth life as the biblical Lot’s wife was allegorically potrayed. The human spirit should be attached to only its Maker. Prophet Mohammed (May the Peace of Allah be upon him wherever he is) had about seven children. Six, except Fatimah, pre-deceased him, but this did not deter him from fufilling his calling and mission to Arabia. His story should be a serious lesson to all worriers who let themselves into depression.

Thank you, Dr Howard Tucker. May you enjoy more years of radiant health filled with useful service to humanity. Alfa Aliu, I wish you no less.

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